There was heavy buzz a couple weeks ago about a series of major donations headed to San Jose arts groups from an anonymous donor.

The money was big — $5.8 million — and the list of beneficiaries was long, ranging from Opera San Jose and Symphony Silicon Valley to San Jose State University’s marching band.

But the donations didn’t materialize, and the donor — who may or may not have been named Emilio Maschino — apparently skipped town just ahead of the cops. He left behind thousands of dollars in hotel bills and the dashed hopes of San Jose’s cash-strapped arts community.

The tale of the swindle, which investigators are still working to unravel, begins with Ed Mosher, who has run a men’s clothing shop in downtown San Jose since 1955. Claiming to have come into a large inheritance, Maschino asked Mosher earlier this year to draw up a list of groups among which he could spread $5.8 million.

San Jose police detectives on the case couldn’t be reached Monday, but Mosher gave them a four-page summary of his

dealings with Maschino, which he also provided to MediaNews. It tells of a charming con man who wined and dined on other people’s dime while stringing them along with planned real estate deals and philanthropy.

He gave Mosher a detailed history of his life, although Mosher doesn’t know if any of it was true — or even what the man’s real name is.

Maschino walked into his store at the Fairmont Hotel in late January. A fresh-faced, affable type, Maschino said he was living at the Fairmont while shopping for a house in Monte Sereno. He said his real estate agent had referred him to Mosher as someone good with clothes and tight with San Jose’s arts community.

He claimed to have gone to Harvard when he was 13 and to have practiced heart surgery in Atlanta. Stanford Medical Center had been courting him, he told Mosher, and during his trips he fell in love with the South Bay.

Maschino also said that on his 39th birthday last fall, his late father’s attorney had told him he had inherited Google and Yahoo stock that had been held in trust for him.

The stock, the man told Mosher, was worth almost $99 million.

And he wanted to spend it in San Jose. He planned to buy a couple of downtown buildings and open a jazz club and restaurant. His East Coast advisers had told him it would be a tax advantage if he donated about $7 million to charities by March 30. Mosher said the man wanted to anonymously give the money to downtown non-profits, figuring it would help with his future projects.

Mosher proposed a list of eight groups downtown and six others connected to San Jose State University, Mosher’s alma mater.

“I’m not really naive,” Mosher said. “What really got it going for me was that he told me he had lived in the Fairmont. And I saw the bills had been paid.”

What Mosher didn’t know until later was that the bills — around $3,000 — had been paid by the real estate agent, Michael LoMonaco. LoMonaco picked up the tab after Maschino told him his wallet had been stolen and his credit cards canceled.

Maschino fed Mosher the same line Feb. 2, saying he was unhappy at the Fairmont and was moving out. He said the Monte Sereno house was still under construction, so he’d spend the weekend at the nearby Hotel Montgomery.

He told Mosher about the stolen wallet and asked if he could vouch for him with the Montgomery. Mosher checked him in with his own credit card. Two weeks later, Mosher returned from a buying trip to discover the hotel had charged $7,938 to his card.

Maschino apologized, saying his new credit card had been mailed to Atlanta, and promised to pay Mosher back.

In the meantime, Mosher took Maschino to a performance by Opera San Jose — which, ironically, is getting a real $2 million gift from another anonymous donor — and to other events where he mingled with Silicon Valley movers and shakers. He dined at the new Morton’s steakhouse, ordering filet mignon and lobster. Of course, he told Mosher, he would pay him back once he got his credit cards.

But in late February, Mosher got a call from Kevin Swanson, a fraternity brother who worked for an investment company and had heard about a gift Delta Upsilon was set to receive for its new chapter house at San Jose State. When Mosher revealed who was giving the money, Swanson said someone by that name had come to him looking for investment help.

The Social Security number the man put on a customer form was for someone named Lawrence Maschino. A search found only two men with that name — and both were dead.

Then Mosher got a call from LoMonaco, who said he had paid the bill at the Fairmont.

LoMonaco says Maschino had been referred to him by a friend. “He seemed credible.” Still, the broker got suspicious after Maschino told him he had given $1 million to a San Jose non-profit group; the group told LoMonaco they’d never heard of the guy.

Something else had raised LoMonaco’s suspicions. “I know a lot about a man from the shoes he wears and the watch he wears,” he said. Maschino, he recalled, “had a cheap watch and a pair of black, rubber-soled boots.’

Still, Mosher held out hope the donations would come through.

On March 1, his attorney told him Maschino had brought him a receipt showing he had made an $11,000 payment by check on Mosher’s credit card. Twelve days later, Mosher’s credit card company told him the check had bounced.

Mosher went to the police.

He told the cops Maschino had set up a meeting Thursday with a hotel desk clerk who had been working for him as a driver and personal assistant. Police staked out the meeting place, but Maschino didn’t show. Mosher said police believe he took a Delta Airlines flight to Savannah, Ga. and are trying to track him from there.

Since then, the Hotel Montgomery has reversed the charges to Mosher and filed a complaint with the police.

“While this is a hit to the bottom line, it’s nothing compared to the disappointment for the arts community,” said Greg Mauldin, general manager of the hotel, which is a regular sponsor of the arts.

Mosher, meanwhile, has been calling the groups that had been awaiting donations and giving them the bad news.

“Needless to say, we are disappointed,” American Musical Theatre chief executive Michael Miller said in an e-mail. “We are sorry that Ed had to go through this when his intentions were so honorable.”

Sal Pizarro has written the Around Town column for The Mercury News since 2005. His column covers the people and events surrounding the cultural scene in Silicon Valley. In addition, he writes Cocktail Chronicles, a feature column on Silicon Valley bars and nightclubs.

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